It’s been a recurring theme on this blog to discuss and dissect the infiltration of quackademic medicine into our medical schools. Whether it be called “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) or “integrative medicine” (IM), its infiltration into various academic medical centers has been one of the more alarming developments I’ve noted over the last several years. The reason is that “integrative” medicine is all too often in reality nothing more than “integrating” pseudoscience with science, quackery with medicine. The most popular modalities that medical schools and academic medicine centers can’t seem to resist are acupuncture and various forms of “energy” healing, such as reiki and therapeutic touch. Unfortunately, when you “integrate” something like reiki or therapeutic touch (TT), which basically assert that there is mystical, magical energy source (called the “universal source” by reiki practitioners, for example) that practitioners can tap into and channel into patients for healing effect, you are in essence integrating a prescientific understanding of the world with science, religious faith healing (which, let’s face it, is all that reiki is), and magic with reality.

A good case of smallpox may rid the system of more scrofulous, tubercular, syphilitic and other poisons than could otherwise be eliminated in a lifetime. Therefore, smallpox is certainly to be preferred to vaccination. The one means elimination of chronic disease, the other the making of it.

If you’re lucky enough to beat the reaper (20-60%; 80% or higher in infants) or blindness (up to 30%), those blisters will leave you scarred for life. Oh, and the next time a good smallpox epidemic comes around, your children born since the last one will catch it and contribute their fair share to the death rate. But not you because you’ll be immune, so you’ll have the “preferred” experience of watching your children die well before you do.

Given the paucity of data related to beneficial effects of chiropractic manipulation of the cervical spine and the real potential for catastrophic adverse events, it was decided to exclude chiropractic manipulation of the cervical spine from coverage.

Back in January, the Connecticut Board of Chiropractic Examiners held a four-day hearing to decide whether chiropractors must, as a part of the informed consent process, (1)warn patients about the risk of cervical artery dissection and stroke following neck manipulation and (2) give patients a discharge summary listing the symptoms of stroke.1 On June 10th, the Board of issued a written opinion that stroke or cervical artery dissection is not a risk of cervical spine manipulation, so no warning is necessary. Presumably, although it is not specifically mentioned in the decision, no discharge summary is required because, if there is no risk of a stroke after neck manipulation, what would be the point?

Background

Janet Levy and Britt Harwe are two Connecticut women who suffered strokes resulting from neck manipulation by chiropractors. That’s not just their lay opinion, it’s the opinion of their respective treating physicians, right there in the medical records.

Each decided that some good should come of their unfortunate situations, so each formed a non-profit and began warning patients of the risk of stroke following manipulation. Victims of Chiropractic Abuse, Levy’s organization, put giant ads on the sides of busses in Bridgeport, CT., much to the chagrin of the folks at the University of Bridgeport. Within the hallowed halls of the University (Go Purple Knights!) is a College of Chiropractic, a College of Naturopathic Medicine, and the Acupuncture Institute. The chiropractors demanded that the ads be taken down, which got exactly nowhere.

Some chiropractors also began harassing Levy and Harwe, calling them Nazis and KKK members, for example, and threatening their personal safety and that of their families.(What is it with the pseudoscience crowd and calling people Nazis? Perhaps, having used up their entire supply of imagination creating their nostrums, they are reduced to these tired tropes.) The FBI recommended Levy and Harwe have one of the harassers arrested, which they did, and that calmed things down for a while. (more…)

The chiropractic vertebral subluxation complex is an historical concept but it remains a theoretical model. It is not supported by any clinical research evidence that would allow claims to be made that it is the cause of disease or health concerns.

They remind chiropractors that they must make sure their own beliefs and values do not prejudice the patient’s care, and that they must provide evidence-based care. Unfortunately, they define evidence-based care as

clinical practice that incorporates the best available evidence from research, the preferences of the patient and the expertise of practitioners, including the individual chiropractor her/himself. [emphasis added]

This effectively allows “in my experience” and “the patient likes it” to be considered along with evidence, effectively negating the whole point of evidence-based medicine.

In a paper published in 2008, two academic chiropractors offered this observation: “The health claims made by chiropractors with respect to the application of manipulation as a health care intervention for pediatric health conditions continue to be supported by only low levels of scientific evidence. Chiropractors continue to treat a wide variety of pediatric health conditions.”1

Despite lack of support by the medical and scientific community, chiropractic treatment of children is growing in popularity, and more chiropractors are specializing in “chiropractic pediatrics.”

The International Chiropractic Association offers a post-graduate “Diplomate in Clinical Chiropractic Pediatrics” (DICCP) and publishes a “peer reviewed” Journal of Clinical Chiropractic Pediatrics. The diplomate syllabus is a 30-module, 360+ hours classroom course during weekends over a three-year period. There is no hospital training and no contact with diseased or injured children — only a “mandatory observational/training weekend at a chiropractic center for special needs children under multi-disciplinary care.”2 A post-graduate certification in chiropractic pediatrics (CICCP) can be earned after 180 hours of classroom instruction.

In a June 2008 joint press release, the American Chiropractic Association’s (ACA) Council on Chiropractic Pediatrics and the Council on Chiropractic Pediatrics of the International Chiropractors Association (ICA) announced that the ICA’s Diplomate in Clinical Chiropractic Pediatrics (DICCP) is now recognized by the ACA and its council as the official credential for specialization in chiropractic pediatrics.3

Noting increasing public support for chiropractic treatment of children, a January 2009 press release from the American Chiropractic Association made this announcement: “Survey data indicates that the percentage of chiropractic patients under 17 years of age has increased at least 8.5 percent since 1991.…Studies are beginning to show that chiropractic can help children not only with typical back and neck pain complaints, but also with issues as varied as asthma, chronic ear infections, nursing difficulties, colic and bedwetting.”4

A trend toward greater utilization of chiropractic by children has not gone unnoticed by the medical profession. An article in the January 2007 issue of Pediatrics (the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics) described chiropractic as the most common complementary and alternative medicine practice used by children, who made an estimated 30 million visits to US chiropractors in 1997.5 In 1998, children and adolescents constituted 11% of patient visits to chiropractors.6(more…)

The Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) show “Marketplace” has just done a scathing exposé of so-called nonsurgical spinal decompression treatment with machines like the DRX 9000 and of some of the unscrupulous practitioners who offer it. Between the hidden camera footage and the weasel words of the chiropractor they interview, it’s quite entertaining.

I spent 43 years in private practice as a “science-based” chiropractor and a critic of the chiropractic vertebral subluxation theory. I am often asked how I justified practicing as a chiropractor while renouncing the basic tenets of chiropractic. My answer has always been: I was able to offer manipulation in combination with physical therapy modalities as a treatment for mechanical-type back pain—a service that was not readily available in physiotherapy or in any other sub-specialty of medicine.

If I had it to do over again, however, I would study physical therapy rather than chiropractic. Considering the controversy that continues to surround the practice of chiropractic, I would not recommend that anyone spend the time, effort, and money required to earn a degree in chiropractic. Physical therapy, which is now beginning to include spinal manipulation in its treatment armamentarium, may offer better opportunity for those interested in manual therapy. Properly-limited, science-based chiropractors are now essentially competing with physical therapists who use manual therapy. Unfortunately, only a few chiropractors have renounced the vertebral subluxation theory, making it difficult to find a “good chiropractor.” I consider physical therapy to be more progressive and more evidence based. For this reason, I generally recommend the manipulative services of a physical therapist rather than a chiropractor.

There are some science-based chiropractors who use manipulation appropriately, but until the chiropractic profession abandons the implausible vertebral subluxation theory and is defined according to standards dictated by anatomy, physiology, and neurology, I would not describe it as a science-based profession.(more…)

An article written by 3 chiropractors and a PhD in physical education and published on December 2, 2009 in the journal Chiropractic and Osteopathy may have sounded the death knell for chiropractic.

The chiropractic subluxation is the essential basis of chiropractic theory. A true subluxation is a partial dislocation: chiropractors originally believed bones were actually out of place. When x-rays proved this was not true, they were forced to re-define the chiropractic subluxation as “a complex of functional and/or structural and/or pathological articular changes that compromise neural integrity and may influence organ system function and general health.” Yet most chiropractors are still telling patients their spine is out of alignment and they are going to fix it. Early chiropractors believed that 100% of disease was caused by subluxation. Today most chiropractors still claim that subluxations cause interference with the nervous system, leading to suboptimal health and causing disease.

What’s the evidence? In the 114 years since chiropractic began, the existence of chiropractic subluxations has never been objectively demonstrated. They have never been shown to cause interference with the nervous system. They have never been shown to cause disease. Critics of chiropractic have been pointing this out for decades, but now chiropractors themselves have come to the same conclusion. (more…)

While manipulation of any kind has the potential to cause injury, stroke caused by neck manipulation is of greatest concern. Risk must always be weighed against benefit when upper neck manipulation is considered. Risk of stroke caused by neck manipulation is statistically low, but the risk is serious enough to outweigh benefit in all but a few rare, carefully selected cases.

When the RAND (Research and Development) organization published its review of the literature on cervical spine manipulation and mobilization in 1996, it concluded that only about 11.1% of reported indications for cervical spine manipulation were appropriate and that stroke and other serious complications occurred about 1.46 times per one million neck manipulations.1 In the same year, after examining 183 cases of vertebrobasilar stroke that occurred from 1934 through 1994 following neck manipulation, the National Chiropractic Mutual Insurance Company (NCMIC) concluded that “It has to be accepted that VBS [vertebrobasilar stroke] following SMT [spinal manipulative therapy] does occur.”2(more…)